Westinghouse Electric Company received the “Distinguished DFMA Supporter
of the Year Award” at the 2012 International Forum on Design for
Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA(R)) held in Providence, RI. Global Director
of Supplier Manufacturing and Value Engineering (SM&VE) Steven King
accepted the award on behalf of the global Westinghouse SM&VE team.
“The vision, discipline and results shown by Westinghouse in closely
coupling Value Engineering with DFMA are exceptional,” says John
Gilligan, President of Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. “The efforts of the
SM&VE team made a significant impact for their company and its customers
in a short amount of time. They have provided others with a textbook
example for managing change and continuous improvement.”
Launched in 2010, with a mandate to expand the role of VE into
analytical costing, the SM&VE group used DFMA software and methods to
more effectively gauge product cost and complexity beginning as early as
the conceptual stage of design.
The DFMA award has been given since 1993 for implementation success and
for educating the engineering community about the role that the methods
play in creating highly competitive products.
Other results from companies and experts presenting at the Forum include:
— Bill Devenish and Kevin Marett helped PCB-Larson Davis, an
acoustics and vibration instrument company, beat aggressive 75 percent
cost-reduction targets using DFMA tools and techniques.
— Dynisco reported seven-figure savings just this year from its
integrated Lean, Value Engineering, DFMA and Total Cost of Ownership
(TCO) program. In the case of a housing assembly, designed initially
by a contract firm, redesign efforts at Dynisco dropped part
count from 62 to one.
— Bill Cleary of Westinghouse Electric Company reported that, by
combining Value Engineering with DFMA, their teams were able to reduce
part count for the Spider nuclear fuel assembly from 41 components to
two, while achieving stringent requirements for quality, performance
and durability.
— Rob Cole of Sonoco Protective Solutions (formerly Tegrant
Corporation; Protexic Brands) identified reductions of 70 percent in
housing parts and 90 percent in disassembly time for a computer
workstation incorporating expanded polypropylene (EPP) materials. This
DFMA-driven Electronic Packaging Assembly Concept (E-PAC) replaces the
traditional PC chassis.
— Harry Moser of the Reshoring Initiative outlined the need for
TCO analysis and spoke of successes to date. According to Moser at
least 50,000 manufacturing jobs have been reshored, which is 10
percent of the 495,000 manufacturing jobs added since the low in
January 2010.
— Whirlpool has introduced an enterprise system, with support
from Convergence Data Services, to track and distribute DFMA and
company cost models rapidly to its global departments. Whirlpool’s
Competitive Cost Analysis (CCA) group is now comprised of 62
cost-engineering specialists who aid in benchmarking and competitive
analysis.
— Motorola Solutions global design centers have rolled out the
Boothroyd Dewhurst DFA Index of efficiency to score past Best-in-Class
product families against new products in development. The benchmarking
program identifies opportunities for product simplification and
excellence under a common metrics-based standard.
DFMA software guides engineers to assess the structural efficiency of
their products and then reduce assembly cost by consolidating individual
parts into elegant, multifunctional designs. Product development teams
can examine competing materials and processes and quantitatively judge
the cost trade-offs of producing new designs or improving existing
products.
For more information about the 2013 DFMA Forum go to:
http://www.dfma.com/forum/index.html
About Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.
Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. was the first company to commercialize Design
for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) methodologies and software tools,
which make it possible to evaluate, estimate, and reduce the
manufacturing cost of a product in the design phase through product
simplification and cost estimation. Hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies,
including Dell, John Deere, Boeing and Whirlpool, use DFMA to cut the
costs of their manufactured products and achieve design innovation in
their markets. The company was founded in 1983 and received the National
Medal of Technology Award in 1991. For more information about DFMA
software, workshops, consulting services, and international conferences,
contact Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., 138 Main Street, Wakefield, R.I.
02879, USA. Tel. (401) 783-5840. Fax (401) 783-6872. Web site:
www.dfma.com .
E-mail: info@dfma.com.
DFMA is a registered trademark of Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.
SOURCE: Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.
Parker Group Miles Parker, +1 401-272-1510 team@parkergroup.com
Copyright Business Wire 2012
Source Article from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/westinghouse-recognized-for-should-cost-methods-2012-07-24
